Secret Door
by NoteEmmy
Summary: There is a door buried somewhere deep inside the spirit's mind. He knows this much is so. He just has to keep pushing until he finds it.


The spirit had never felt truly home in the endless maze of his own mind. Doors upon doors with never-ending hallways and ceilings, and not a real clue how to navigate any of it. It belonged to him, did it not? Then why was it all so foreboding and alienating? Intruders into his mind got what they paid for- in blood, ruin, insanity. They did not belong here. The rooms shifted with shivering shadows and tossed those who were unworthy into the spiked pits of hell. But for him, the spirit who never stopped wandering, nothing ever was truly dangerous, just upsetting.

Traps would not spring on him. No floors would open up to swallow him whole. Nothing would grab him and drag him to never be seen again. Just empty rooms. All the doors led to nothing. He could run down one hall and then another and yet another and still find himself back in the main room. He could sit on the roof stairs for hours and not have any real inclination about how to find what he was looking for.

A secret door. The door to his memories. Hidden away, far, far away so that he couldn't enter it until the time was just right. But how could his heart hide such a thing from him? If he could command the room to do as he willed with attackers, why could he not make it show him the right path? If this was all a culmination of his hard efforts, then where was the key? Surely he must have hidden one somewhere.

It came on a restless night much like any other since he'd awoken. One that was accompanied by the soft sounds of footfalls against ancient flooring and the echo that radiated among the high walls. Creaking of doors opening and shutting almost drowned out what he thought to be the sound of whispering. There had never been any outside forces in his place of imprisonment. No wind. No sun. No rain. It was so quiet and so eerie that he thought it could have possibly been the gentle whipping of a breeze down the hallways.

He came to a stop, hand on the cold etchings of the wall, eyes closing so that he could listen harder. Closing tighter with each second so that he knew he wasn't merely dreaming or slipping into insanity that would only cease when Yuugi called for him. No- it was someone. Someone was there. With him. For a brief moment he felt like someone other than his partner was walking this maze with him. He felt less alone in that stupendously stupid second in time.

And then he started following the noise. Deeper into the belly of his locked home, twisting through the corridors and small spaces that threatened to crush him. He pressed in, more and more until the whispers became chanting. Soft and fleeting, but real. Very real. The spirit needed it. He needed whomever was on the other end. Someone that belonged here with him- but wasn't just him. Perhaps an answer. So he ran harder, pushing himself to exhaustion so great that the rooms started growing dark around him.

His hand gripped the handle of a door, one he was sure he'd seen about a thousand times previously but it was different now. It wasn't cold and offending, off-putting like the entirety of his own mind. Now it was warm. A feeling he found himself chasing as he thrust it open and burst through the doorway, nearly stumbling in his feverish fervor to find out just who was sunk in here along with him.

On the long end of the hall he saw a faint but bubbling blue light. And that too he followed until he was faced with something utterly impossible and a feeling he couldn't quite place.

"There you are." The voice was not one uncommon to him. It took the tone of his hardened rival's, someone he was so used to that the way this man held himself was shocking. The voice was soft. Full of heart. -for him. The way he was being spoken to by the lips that were speaking was so stunning that he forgot himself. It gave the body opposite him time enough to step closer. "It's strange, looking at you this way."

The spirit didn't really recognize this man, but something deep, deep inside him twisted painfully. Something in him knew, even though he himself did not. He'd seen the visions. Seen what his past was waiting to tell him. This man, though he looked like Kaiba, and though he'd been led to believe rose up against him, could not have possibly been anything less than valiant and trustworthy. The way his heart thumped so madly told him so. "You- are…" His wording was choppy as he tried to get a grip. To understand just what was happening here. "Priest-" What was it now…

"Yes." The man spoke as if he was trying to lead the spirit on to saying his name. As if he needed it so greatly that if he did not hear it in that moment he might wither away into the blackness of the sky above them and perish. And when the spirit faltered he merely smiled, a look of defeat, and took the face opposite him in his hands, brushing over him in remembrance. "So this is what the seeds of my efforts bore. You are the fruit of all that labor." Nothing in his tone sounded of disappointment. Only the faintest hint of sadness.

He'd started, going tense, but finding it terribly hard to keep himself in that position when those hands felt so warm against his skin. _His_ skin. Not Yuugi's. This experience was unique to him. Not one he shared. And with the realization he eased, just a breath away from melting into something that was so warm and inviting. Dangerously loving. "Your efforts?" His voice had become wispy, trembling as he brought his own hands up to cover the ones touching him. To make contact with this person who had invaded his territory and who had brought a sliver of clarity that maybe he wasn't so alone. And that he wasn't just a usurping shadow of someone else's story.

The Priest leaned in, pleased when the spirit allowed him to do so, brushing his lips carefully along the shell of his ear. "You're not all here, my Pharaoh." It was painful to watch the smaller form grasp at straws. If he was allowed to envelop him, to take him in his arms and murmur his name until he fully remembered it, the Priest might have. But he knew better than that. "But you will be." Soon he'd returned to his true and rightful form. Soon everything would fit into place. And the Pharaoh would be at his side again.

"Soon." He mirrored the man's thoughts unknowingly, lifting up on his tiptoes to drink in more. Feeling in a way that had been all but unknown to him until just this moment. He wasn't merely a borrower, receiving touch that was not meant for him. This was his own experience. And this man standing opposite him… belonged to him in some way, did he not? He shuddered as the slender fingers of his new counterpart slid into his hair. For once he didn't resist. "Set-" Was that it? A syllable shy of his hardened rival's name. This man was nothing like Kaiba.

He was kind and warm and inviting. And if this had been a trap he would have fallen so deep into it his journey may have ended.

His lips curved into a pleased smile with the spirit's efforts. "I know it's hard." Hard for him to remember things that didn't belong to him anymore. Not in this pale, tied up form. They belonged to his Pharaoh. But even though the man shuddering in his arms was a ghost, he was still a fragment of the man he used to know. And it was enough to need to drink him in. "You have to keep fighting." He felt the sorrow that was baked into these walls. The torment caused by unceasing questions. The unfairness of it all, on such small but strong shoulders. There was nothing he could do to help- save but this.

"I won't give in." A strong statement followed by a pleased rumble as Set pulled more of him in.

"My King would never." Not on his life. He would fight. And that was knowledge enough that the spirit was still who he ought to be. And that this had been the right decision indeed. As his lips pressed to the spirit's temple he breathed him in one last time. "Keep this promise, this time." He didn't want to see him broken, slain on the battlefield with promises of return. This was hardly worth that effort, the world at stake or no.

Was he a man that broke promises? What sort of King had he been? How exactly had his story ended? All of these things and so many more he wanted to ask. Even when he knew it wouldn't be right. And the moment his lips parted in the single soft effort to even try Set found them with his own to silence him. He felt as though he was being shot straight through, punished for being so quick to counter, quick to give up his mission statement, and at the same time relieved and loved. Being found all over again. By this man he hardly even knew, who wore a face similar to a man who had proclaimed sincere hatred.

And when he awoke sitting in the hallway that merged his partner's mind and his own he felt almost discharged; thrown out by his own room. He stood, unwanting to open the door again just to find the room unbearably empty. Instead he leaned against it, palms flat and fingers spread wide. His eyes closed and just for a beautifully brief second he felt the warmth and the tingle against his lips. The feeling that someone was still there for solely him. He fought as the memory faded, the name, the meeting, those eyes and the way he felt safe with those arms around him; tears dropping from his eyes in protest, in anguish. All of it was gone until the only thing left for him was feeling that there was a door somewhere deep inside his mind.

A door that was warm and that called for him. The one that held his memories.

And so he walked. As Yuugi slumbered he followed the maze's paths, down the stairs, across the ceilings, and into the darkness. There was a secret door somewhere inside him. He would find it. One day.

He just had to keep looking.


End file.
